104 
date from almost the dawn of settlement, though it was not till 
early in the eighteenth century that anything approaching sys- 
tematic, or scientific observations could be said to have begun, in 
such records and descriptions as Catesby’s Natural History of 
Carolina, 1731; Bartram’s Travels in 1791, and Barton’s Frag- 
ments of the Natural History of Pennsylvania, in 1799. 
With the work of Wilson and Audubon early in the nine- 
teenth century the distinctive aspects of systematic ornithology 
may be considered as fairly established, though of course greatly 
extended by many noted ornithologists even up to the present 
time. 
This however partook but slightly of what may be desig- 
nated as economic ornithology, or that phase of the subject con- 
cerned with the economic relations which birds sustain to the 
varied aspects of organic nature, particularly to that of agricul- 
ture. Such were the aspects of the earlier inquiries and reports 
of several of the state agricultural societies, as those of Ohio and 
Illinois, of Allen’s Birds of New England, Elliott’s Game Birds 
of the United States; the last dealing more particularly with the 
aspects of birds as food. 
The only one of these earlier inquiries which proceeded upon 
modern lines of investigation seems to have been a report made to 
the Massachusetts Horticultural society in 1858, by Jenks, based 
chiefly upon observations made upon the robin; and included a 
systematic examination of the food contents of stomachs of birds 
killed at stated intervals during the year. 
The devastations of the Rocky Mountain locust during the 
period from 1870 to 1880 called out extended observations on the 
food habits of various animals in their possible relations to the 
locust plague. 
Notable among these was the report of Aughey in 1878*, 
and included both critical observations made upon the feeding 
habits of birds in the fields, as well as upon the food contents of 
the stomachs of those taken for that purpose, and was up to that 
time one of the most valuable contributions made to the subject. 
The work of Professor Forbes, of Illinois, whose contribu- 
tions to this subject at various times from 1880 to 1890 mark a 
